age perfectly satisfied;
nay, absolutely vain of a person the most singularly hideous that ever
walked the earth!"

"IS it?" whispered Poinsinet. "Indeed and indeed I didn't think it so
bad!"

"He acknowledges it! he acknowledges it!" roared the magician. "Wretch,
dotard, owl, mole, miserable buzzard! I have no reason to tell thee now
that thy form is monstrous, that children cry, that cowards turn pale,
that teeming matrons shudder to behold it. It is not thy fault that thou
art thus ungainly: but wherefore so blind? wherefore so conceited of
thyself! I tell thee, Poinsinet, that over every fresh instance of thy
vanity the hostile enchanters rejoice and triumph. As long as thou
art blindly satisfied with thyself; as long as thou pretendest, in thy
present odious shape, to win the love of aught above a negress; nay,
further still, until thou hast learned to regard that face, as others
do, with the most intolerable horror and disgust, to abuse it when thou
seest it, to despise it, in short, and treat that miserable disguise in
which the enchanters have wrapped thee with the strongest, hatred and
scorn, so long art thou destined to wear it."

Such speeches as these, continually repeated, caused Poinsinet to be
fully convinced of his ugliness; he used to go about in companies, and
take every opportunity of inveighing against himself; he made verses and
epigrams against himself; he talked about "that dwarf, Poinsinet;" "that
buffoon, Poinsinet;" "that conceited, hump-backed Poinsinet;" and he
would spend hours before the glass, abusing his own face as he saw
it reflected there, and vowing that he grew handsomer at every fresh
epithet that he uttered.

Of course the wags, from time to time, used to give him every possible
encouragement, and declared that since this exercise, his person was
amazingly improved. The ladies, too, began to be so excessively fond of
him, that the little fellow was obliged to caution them at last--for the
good, as he said, of society; he recommended them to draw lots, for
he could not gratify them all; but promised when his metamorphosis was
complete, that the one chosen should become the happy Mrs. Poinsinet;
or, to speak more correctly, Mrs. Polycarte.

I am sorry to say, however, that, on the score of gallantry, Poinsinet
was never quite convinced of the hideousness of his appearance. He had a
number of adventures, accordingly, with the ladies, but strange to say,
the husbands or fathers